Minimization of total harmonic distortions of cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter by utilizing bio inspired AI algorithm

Minimizing total harmonic distortion (THD) with less system complexity and computation time is a stringent constraint for many power systems. The multilevel inverter can have low THD when switching angles are selected at the fundamental frequency. For low-order harmonic minimization, selective harmonic elimination (SHE) is the most adopted and proficient technique but it involves the non-linear transcendental equations which are very difficult to solve analytically and numerically. This paper proposes a genetic algorithm (GA)-based optimization technique to minimize the THD of cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter. The GA is the finest approach for solving such complex equations by obtaining optimized switching angles. The switching angles are calculated by the genetic algorithm by solving the nonlinear transcendental equations. This paper has modeled and simulated a five-level inverter in MATLAB Simulink. The THD comparison is carried out between step modulation method and optimization method. The results reveal that THD has been reduced from 17.88 to 16.74% while third and fifth harmonics have been reduced from 3.24%, 3.7% to 0.84% and 3.3%, respectively. The optimization method along with LC filter significantly improves the power quality providing a complete sinusoidal signal for varying load.